Plo Executes 20 Rebel Guerrillas

February 17, 1991

BEIRUT — In the aftermath of large-scale clashes between rival factions within the Palestine Liberation Organization, 20 guerrillas who had participated in a mutiny against their commander were executed in southern Lebanon early Saturday, security officials said. The deaths raised to 37 the number of people reported killed in the violence. So-called revolutionary courts tried and condemned to death close aides to a battalion commander in Yasser Arafat`s Fatah group, the main PLO faction, who had led an armed insurrection against his superior officers. The renegade officer, Lt. Col. Abu Mohammed Zaaroura, was captured Friday and killed by a firing squad after his mutiny was crushed near the port of Sidon.